


all the mysteries of the universe

by sleepy_santiago



Category: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Kid Fic, Kids, M/M, Pre-Slash, aristotle and dante AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:02:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22024519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepy_santiago/pseuds/sleepy_santiago
Summary: In the midst of a summer heatwave, Dean Winchester meets a blue-eyed boy at the pool who offers to teach Dean how to swim.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	all the mysteries of the universe

**Author's Note:**

> A human AU with the boys as kids, inspired by Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz (the title is also from the book) and set in a handwavey pre-2010s decade. Pre-slash and gen!

Dean met him at the swimming pool.

  
That summer was the hottest the town had experienced in a few decades. The air shimmered with a lethargic heat; trees wilted until their branches looked like sorry little sticks of old celery; just yesterday Sammy had cracked an egg onto the sidewalk outside their house and watched with a morbid fascination as it baked into a perfect sunny side up. Lying in his tiny bedroom with the radio warbling the latest hits from the windowsill had begun to feel too much like being inside a very steamy oven, and so Dean had dug out a pair of old swim trunks from one of the overflowing drawers of his dresser and told his mom he was going to the public pool on the way out the door.

  
The trunks were a little tight, Dean thought as he snapped the elastic waistband against his stomach in front of the changing room mirror. His mom had gotten them for him two or three years ago, meaning to sign him up for swimming lessons, but they were still as vibrantly red as ever, because he’d never actually learned how to swim.

  
Dean sat at the edge of the pool, swishing his calves in the cold water and feeling like a freaking girl. He wanted to get in, he really did, but he hadn’t really thought about what he was supposed to do once he was in the water until now. Two teenaged boys his age jetted noisily by a lane over. They’d been racing one another since Dean had arrived ten minutes ago, and were already on their seventh lap. He scowled down at his knobbly knees.

  
“I can teach you.”

  
It took a second or two for Dean the realize the voice was talking to him. He swung around, confused.

  
The boy floated to his right, one arm hooked over the edge of the pool. He had dark hair plastered to his round head and eyes even bluer than the swimming pool.

  
Dean had been silent for just a beat too long for it to not be awkward, he realized. “What?” he said intelligently.

  
“I can teach you how to swim.”

  
Dean bristled. “What makes you think I can’t swim?” he demanded, realizing the moment the words left his mouth how stupid they sounded. The sun beat down on his reddening shoulders, almost mockingly.

  
Thankfully, the boy didn’t seem concerned with arguing. He just shrugged and smiled. “I’m Cas.”

  
The chuckle bubbled out from Dean’s lips before he could stop it. “That’s a girl’s name, isn’t it?”

  
Cas sighed and began to turn away, positioning himself to kick off from the pool wall.

  
“Wait,” blurted Dean. Cas gave him an inquisitive look over his pale shoulder. “Teach me. If you think you’re so good,” he blustered, ears turning warm.

  
A smile spread over Cas’s round face, slow and dazzling.

  
~

  
Flutter kicks turned into backstrokes which turned into reading comic books in Dean’s bedroom. Dean liked hanging out with the strange little guy. Cas was the same age as him but a grade below, he’d explained, because his English hadn’t been so good when his family had moved from Russia when he was seven. Dean had never had a friend like Cas. Cas was more interested in fine-arts photography than football, would much rather talk about dead old philosophers than hot girls.

  
“Your mom’s real nice,” Cas murmured one day, flipping the page of the comic book he was reading, lying on Dean’s floor.

  
Dean made a noncommittal noise from his bed. He loved his mom, and her apple pies, and he didn’t know what he’d ever do without her. But it wasn’t exactly something a guy talked with his buddies about.

  
“I wish I had a mom.”

  
Dean looked at Cas from the corner of his eye. The other boy had placed the book face-down on his stomach and was gazing earnestly back at Dean. Dean shifted uncomfortably.

Cas sighed, like he had the day they’d met, and picked his comic book back up.

  
Dean stared at him for a long moment before asking, “What’s your dad like?” They still hadn’t hung out at Cas’s, and come to think of it, Dean didn’t even know where he lived.

  
“Not much of one,” Cas said. “He’s the editor-in-chief of a big publishing house in the city and he’s there all the time. Mostly my big siblings and his credit card take care of me.”

  
“Are you the youngest?”

  
“Second youngest. I have a little sister, Hannah,” Cas replied with a little smile. Dean never smiled like that, unguarded, when he talked about Sammy with the guys at school. He was usually too busy making fun of him and his dweeby Lord of the Rings obsession.

  
What was it about Cas that allowed him to be so unlike Dean?

  
“Hey, wanna go downstairs and see if dinner’s ready?” Dean asked.

  
~

  
It wasn’t until a month and a half of swimming at the public pool and kicking around Dean’s room had gone by that Cas finally invited Dean to his house.

  
The Novak house stood front and center in its cul de sac, grey and severe. It wasn’t the sprawling manor Dean had half-expected, but you could tell the people living inside were well-to-do.

  
Inside, Cas’s big sister Naomi greeted them coolly before returning to her home office and shutting the door firmly. Dean heard the lock click. Hannah perched on a stool at the kitchen’s marble island, legs swinging, as she worked through her summer school homework. Dean nodded to her awkwardly and she grinned back, Cheshire-cat-like.

  
When they finally reached Cas’s bedroom upstairs, Dean found himself breathing a sigh of relief. “Where’s everyone else?” he asked, turning on the spot as he took in Cas’s space. It was a surprisingly normal room. Dean had expected sterile white walls, alphabetized bookshelves, a neatly made bed. The bed was neatly made, but the walls were a warm vanilla shade, and only a few books were scattered across the room - on the desk, at the foot of the bed, on the windowsill.

  
“Michael and Raphael are at work, Sam and Gabe are probably out with their friends somewhere. Causing trouble. I borrow all the books I read from the library,” Cas explained, watching Dean turn over a ratty copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray to look at the barcode taped onto the back.

  
Dean looked up in surprise. “Didn’t know you had a brother named Sam, too.”

  
“Yeah, but it’s short for Samandriel, not Samuel. There’re a lot of things you don’t know about me, Dean.”

  
“You like this with all your friends?”

  
“Well, what are you like with yours?”

  
Dean shrugged. Truth was, he talked a lot about his “friends” and how they did things. But since meeting Cas, he wasn’t so sure if he really had any friends.

  
~

  
“Dean, there’s a call for you,” Dean’s mom called from downstairs. Dean rolled over and cracked an eye open to look at his alarm clock. 8:44 am. Sunlight poured into the room, and the back of his neck was sticky with sweat. What the hell did Cas want?

  
“What the hell do you want? It’s the middle of the night,” Dean grumbled into the receiver, slumped over the refreshingly cold kitchen counter.

  
“There’s a meteor shower tonight,” Cas said. “My cul de sac is on a hill and isolated enough. We have a big backyard. Come before ten. Bring blankets.” And he hung up.

  
Nonplussed, Dean slowly replaced the phone.

  
When he made the trek up to the Novak house at 9:30, the sun’s gold had slipped under the horizon as night bled into the sky. Dean pressed the doorbell and listened as the sombre piano notes chimed through the big house.

  
Cas was at the door within three seconds. “Come on!” He led Dean through the house and out the back door. The backyard opened right into the grassy hilltop, a wide clearing ringed by tall conifer trees that pointed up toward the dome of the sky where pinpricks of silver had begun appearing.

  
Cas and Dean stood side by side, and Dean looked up at the dark sky and breathed in crisp air. It smelled like freedom; like relief. It reminded him of the calming presence beside him.

  
They laid their blankets down in the middle of the clearing and flopped onto their backs. “So when are the shooting stars coming out?” Dean asked after a few minutes had passed.

  
“It’s a meteor shower,” Cas correct him haughtily. Dean smiled. “They’ll start soon. The ones we’re waiting for are called the Perseids. They peak today and tomorrow. They’re named after the constellation they originate from - Perseus the Hero.” He spent the next few minutes trying to point out Perseus’s outline in the stars to Dean, but try as he might, Dean just could not make out the sword-wielding hero.

  
“How often does the meteor shower happen?” Dean asked.

  
“Every year,” Cas replied. He sounded mellow, almost sleepy. “I used to watch them with my brothers and sisters, and my father, lying here in the grass together. I’d pretend they were angels when I was little - fallen angels. Disgraced and cast out of the heavens, onto the earth.”

  
Dean turned to crook a smile at the outline of Cas’s face. “You had a pretty dark mind for a little kid.”  
Cas tilted his head and smiled back. As Dean’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see the glint of Cas’s big azure eyes, the slope of his slightly crooked nose. He traced Cas’s face with his eyes, all the way down to his lips - which were moving, saying something to him.

  
“Huh?”

  
Cas huffed a laugh. “I said, whoever sees the first ‘shooting star - ’” he air-quoted “ - should get to make a wish.”

  
“Okay,” said Dean, turning back to face the sky. His gaze latched onto a streak of silver moving at a diagonal angle. “Like that one?” He pointed.

  
Dean heard the other boy’s breath catch in awe. “Yes,” Cas breathed. “Like that one. Make a wish, Dean.” Two, then three more meteors began their luminous descent to the right of the first one.

  
Dean looked at Cas’s shadowed profile, at the way his wide-eyed gaze tracked the progress of the shooting stars across the sky.

  
“I already have.”


End file.
